Open AccessControl of capillary behavior through target-responsive hydrogel permeability alteration for sensitive visual quantitative detection
Author(s) -
Yansheng Li,
Yanli Ma,
Xiangyu Jiao,
Tingyu Li,
Zhehao Lv,
Chaoyong Yang,
Xueji Zhang,
Yongqiang Wen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
nature communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.559
H-Index - 365
ISSN - 2041-1723
DOI - 10.1038/s41467-019-08952-1
Subject(s) - self healing hydrogels , capillary action , materials science , permeability (electromagnetism) , detection limit , biomedical engineering , nanotechnology , computer science , chemistry , chromatography , membrane , composite material , medicine , biochemistry , polymer chemistry
DNA hydrogels have received considerable attention in analytical science, however, some limitations still exist in the applications of intelligent hydrogels. In this paper, we describe a way to prepare gel film in a capillary tube based on the thermal reversible principle of DNA hydrogel and the principle of capillary action. Because of the slight change in the internal structure of gel, its permeability can be increased by the addition of some specific targets. The capillary behavior is thus changed due to the different permeability of the hydrogel film. The duration time of the target solution flowing through the capillary tube with a specified length is used to quantify this change. With this proposed method, ultra-trace DNA hydrogel (0.01 μL) is sufficient to realize the sensitive detection of cocaine without the aid of other instruments, which has a low detection limit (1.17 nM) and good selectivity.